Every second is another chance to be someone better than you were

Alright, here I am after a long hiatus.

I hope none of you thought I had been run over or accosted for shooting someone in the street. There's several weeks worth of photos due, I know, and while I didn't quite make the Seven every week, I did try and keep up.

So here's a mega-huge post that I hope makes up for it. 

This is one of our IT guys at work. I often think it must be a strange thing to work in IT for a company where most people are tech-savvy. But I guess it means that the bugs and issues just become weirder.

Take this, for example. He's connecting a TV up to our network using arcade-style controls. I think I'm slowly getting used to all sorts of random.

Just prior to Christmas I wandered over to the Fish Markets with some friends. I have no idea how or why. One of my friends needed to pick up some fish and so we tagged along. At 1am or so in the morning.

I really dislike the Fish Markets. Not because I don't eat shell fish, but because every time I go there I seem to get shat on by seagulls. Thankfully there weren't many at 1am, but previously I've been shat on the leg, on the head and even in my ear. I swear those bastards are aiming for me.

One day I'll get my revenge. Come here seagull, I'm going to shit in your ear.

While we were wandering around, we suddenly had the idea of making Bloody Marys. I've never had or seen one before, but I'm not sure it's meant to look like this. It reminds me of this scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:

"I asked you to give me a refreshing drink! Wasn't expecting a fucking rainforest. You could fall in love with an orangutan in there!"

I seem to have a thing for benches. I never sit on them myself, but I like taking photos of them in peaceful places I've encountered. They never seem to be occupied, but I bet many others have sat and contemplated deep, serious thoughts. Me? No, I just giggle and fart and move on.

This is my dog giving her best impression of being an oversized rat. I don't know why, but she's hopeless at being the ferocious German Shepherd Dog that everyone thinks she is. I think I may have mentioned this before.

She's got seriously long legs. I call them supermodel legs. But she's constantly got this look of worry on her face. What's that? You're scratching my head. Oh no! I like it, but... Oh no! We love her anyway.

Christmas means getting fat. I'm not huge to begin with, but I've stopped growing upwards and begun to grow sideways. I'm always at a loss at what to tell people when they ask what I'm doing for Christmas. Lots of people have plans to go away, but me? I always spend it with my family.

Going away sounds like fun, and I'm sure it is, no doubt, but I've always thought it's time spent with those closest.

There used to be a giant sculpture in the Galeries Victoria where an LCD signboard at the top of it could be programmed to read whatever you wanted. I think after being abused, it was quickly disabled and thereafter became something really boring.

I hadn't been in a while but now there's a giant staircase and a series of floating books, presumably from Books Kinokunia. I'm sure it changed a while ago and I'd simply not noticed.

Down near the Regency building, past Chef's Gallery (and no, it's not like Men's Gallery but with chefs), there's a coffee place called Tom'N'Toms. It looks like an Asian ripoff of Starbucks, but I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The Engrish is amusing, to say the least, but the other weird thing is that they sell pretzels.

The only advice I can give is not to drink the coffee.

I can't remember where this is exactly, but I think it's somewhere nearby Oxford Street and down an alleyway. I don't think it ever really gets noticed, which is a shame, but I wonder what was going through the minds of the designers. I didn't notice any theme among any of the buildings, just one alley-facing wall with flowers.

What I love about Summer is that after work there's still light. I walk past Railway Square all the time and more recently there's been this lovely glowing light as the sun settles down. Although you can't see it for the sun, Central Park is also beginning to emerge on the horizon. It's not yet built to its full height, but there's this giant gap in the sky between the buildings that you can see it will eventually take up.

I'm still not sure whether I approve of the development or not. I guess it's just one of those things I'll only be able to decide on once it's finished and the full effects are known.

Supermarket Mondays. We've changed over to Woolworths for a bit so instead of making fun of the characters and their quotes on Coles Select products, I get to see cats that are either enjoying themselves in the middle of a long one, or are smugly approving of their owner's choice of litter.

Why do they call it litter anyway, isn't cat crap meant to be litter? Putting litter in your litter? Litterception?

Don't think I've ever seen one of these before, nor one that's been spray painted. To be honest, I don't really know how to interpret this one. Golden child? I'm also curious to know who is removing these. I don't think it's council because a lot of others don't go missing, but they don't really last long either.

This is a Black House spider that had been living in our laundry for the past few years. Venomous, but not agressive and generally not a biter. I'd known it had been sitting in the same place for a while and we'd lived relatively harmoniously, but only under the condition that it never venture further into the house.

Unfortunately after several bouts of rain it decided to creep right into the house and we had to get rid of it. It's probably the most tolerant I've been with a spider since they tend to scare me the crap out of me unless I've grown accustomed to them (like hiking in the bush for several days).

I went to an Asian grocer the other day and bought a cleaver. I don't know why, but it felt rather weird carrying one in a shopping basket. When I was a little kid, there was a white elephant sale at my primary school. One of the things for sale, I think for a dollar, was a cleaver.

I have no idea what possessed me to buy it, but I did. And without questioning what I would do with it, it was sold to me. I ended up giving it to my mum, who also never questioned how I got it. I doubt that would ever happen today.

I couldn't decide if I really wanted these biscuits or not. I mean, I could eat stoned cars or sexy stoned monkeys.

What do people think when they design these things? Or do they?

I actually went to Sydney Festival first night by accident. I felt like stretching the legs so I wandered out into town and discovered this in Martin Place. There were people dancing in the street.

I've got to say that Sydney puts on a pretty good show. If I were a tourist visiting over the New Year I'd certainly think that it is one of the best cities in the world. I mean, you come around for what are arguably some of the best fireworks, then they throw this party for several weeks and now it's Chinese New Year and they have all sorts of other stuff on.

This guy climbed a light pole to see the guys that were doing acrobatics on poles. I like that no one around him really cared.

Social experiment? People kept moving these lights and I was curious as to why people at times would avoid walking between them or stroll through either not noticing or not caring.

There's only really one reason I took this pic.

That is all.

I've noticed this is a thing Sydney does quite a bit. When in doubt, make your trees technicolour. I'm not quite sure if this had any significance, but I'm with the majority with throwing reasoning out the window. It just looks frickin' cool!

This is one of those times where a fast photo results in this, a slow photo results in a mess and neither really show what is going on. You know when you look at those optical illusions of banded together lines and it makes your head spin. That's a good approximation of what this moving pattern achieved, but on the scale of being building-sized.

Let's gather around the TV, children. There's not enough room in the Domain to house everyone, so there's an obvious solution. Close the road, bring in a huge-ass screen on a crane, wire up the street with giant speakers, and turn off all the street lights.

Looking down towards Kings Cross. I still haven't got my technique to walk across the street, snap, and run before the lights change, quite perfected yet. I rarely venture into the Cross. The last time I went drinking there I don't remember how I got home. I do remember convincing a girl to make out with one of my work colleagues and something to do with an aerosol can.

And meanwhile, here's a pineapple wearing a disguise. Could have fooled me. It's at the cafe attached to my gym. I somehow know the first names of most of the baristas at cafes I frequent, but I'm more impressed when it's the other way around and I haven't struck up a conversation.

When I was working in The Rocks a while back, I used to regularly order lunch from a little shop attached to the Shangri-La Hotel. The lady there knew my name and what I usually ordered. It was actually a little more expensive than other places nearby, but customer service like that kept me coming back. Everyone wants to feel special.

So anyway, I'm sorry for not posting in such a long time. I was on such a roll too! I know some of you are keen photographers, so I have something that might interest some of you. After attending the Google+ photowalk, I've found myself with a Google+ camera strap that I've realised I'm never going to use.

Rather than see it collect dust, I'd be interested to know if anyone would be interested in having it, even if it is re-gifted? Leave me a comment below or send a Tweet to @mukimu, preferably with the tag #7inSyd to catch my attention.

Genuine apologies make certain they never have to occur again

I pretty much wrote this week off after several evenings out kept me from my work. That and I've still been playing too many video games. I have a feeling it's going to be like this until next year as Christmas rolls in.

Speaking of which, I'd better find some presents for people. 

Guns on our streets. Lol. Does it fire lulz? How would you reload a lulz gun?

I actually considered joining a shooting club as something that would be out of the ordinary, but I have enough expensive hobbies as it is. A gun that could fill people with laughter would be infinitely more useful.

What about all this rain? It seems I wasn't the only one caught out without an umbrella this week. I'd like to some day take my DSLR out in the rain and shoot street. You see, most people aren't going to stop you when it's pouring and they're trying to get out of the rain. And there's some quite odd things to see.

Take this fellow for example. I have no idea how this works, but he'd been doing it for a while, wandering around, not in any sort of rush, with his hand on his head. I haven't been minding the rain too much for this reason. There's always a lot of interesting things to see.

I ended up in Lidcombe this week and one of the places I stopped in at was a Korean grocery store. Why? Ice cream. I don't understand any of it except the English written "please", but I assume it's asking me not to leave the freezer open. Or eat all of their ice cream. Or take photos or something.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love Korean ice cream. I'm not a huge fan of Melona, the green ones in this pic, but I like the "e-Chocolate Bars" in the blue packaging. Apparently it stands for enriched chocolate ice cream bar. I'd tell you where this shop was, only I have no idea where I was at the time.

A close near-second are Asian drinks. Who else would sell "Alcohol Doctor" hangover tea? Or a Power of Energy drink? I have no idea what else is in this fridge. I ended up getting something that looked like a half-can of orange-flavoured something-or-other.

I figured it'd be like Fanta, but when I opened it it wasn't carbonated and instead contained orange pulp and sweet orange juice. I bet one day I'll buy a coffee based on the picture of coffee beans on it, but instead find it is actually just full of coffee beans.

Remember my infatuation with bananas? I'd been waiting for them to come down in price and refusing to buy them any sooner than what I thought was fair. The only problem is, I've gone so long without them and feel so spiteful towards Coles and Woolies/Safeway for jacking up the prices (and I believe they went up way before and after stock would have been affected/been restored) that I haven't been buying many.

I have been a lot less festive this year. Normally we have our lights up around November and the tree shortly after. In fact, our lights have been up for the past two years, just never switched on. Well, they don't seem to be working correctly this year and we're still debating where we'd put the tree. We currently have a giant cat tree in our living room for our cat, where our Christmas tree usually goes.

But in a way, I don't feel so bad when we have this Christmas carousel at work. This thing actually moves. I spent a little while trying to figure out if it was at all possible to get inside and dance amongst the reindeer, but it doesn't seem possible. I've taken to prancing around outside of it when I think no one is looking.

I haven't had a Zooper Dooper in years. When I was in the first grade or so, my primary school used to have tokens that kids were given for good behaviour. These could then be exchanged at the school canteen for a Zooper Dooper. The first time I ever got one I was super excited (excited is something I generally don't appear to be these days, at least outwardly) and ran to the canteen during recess.

I was clutching it in my hand as I ran across the playground as fast as I could with the other kids who had one, but when it came my turn to give up my token, it suddenly wasn't in my hand anymore.

I never did find out what happened to it, or forget the moment of panic I felt when I realised I'd lost something important to me. After seeing me lost for words and on the verge of bursting into tears, the canteen lady spoke for me. "Did you lose your token, dear?" The only thing I could do was nod while still looking around, wondering how it could have impossibly disappeared.

She handed me a Zooper Dooper after snipping the top off with a pair of scissors and reassured me it was okay before sending me on my way. I still don't recall the taste of it, but I've always remembered the mix of emotions at the time. It was probably my first lesson in life of significant (to me at the time) material loss, but more importantly, that sometimes people will give you the benefit of the doubt, even when they're within their full right not to.

Sometimes the biggest problem is admitting you have a problem

Lots of things to take pics of this week, with work Christmas parties happening. Unfortunately, I failed to remember to take pics. Then again, it was probably a good thing I didn't take any after seeing some that have been floating around the office. I'm not sure if I'm not in many because I managed to dodge the camera, or if others are saving me from embarrassment.

I've also been healing up all week from a toe infection of sorts in preparation for a 20km day walk. A couple of those pics made it through this week.

In the office, we're starting up our podcast again, but it's turned into a more relaxed chat about whatever might come up rather than a more structured (and stale) program. For me, unstructured-ness is a great thing. I tend to not like it much as I generally go wherever, which is a bit of a blessing and a curse as a writer since I'm forever trying to figure out where I'm going with something, but in the meantime coming up with all sorts of new thoughts.

I also have developed a horrible habit of over formalising things after working as a consultant in so many corporate environments. I try to take things a little less seriously these days, but bad habits are hard to break.

Out on Sydney harbour on Friday on a boat. Nice boat.

I've always wanted to get my boat licence, not just because it'd be fun to float around (probably in a tin can), but because I could be Captain Michael of Sydney! I'd so flaunt that. Excuse me? Michael? That's Captain Michael to you.

One of the people I was talking to on the boat that had their licence said that one of the first things the licence guide tells you is that boats and alcohol don't mix. "I don't know what they're talking about. Boats and alcohol are one of the best combinations known to man!"

I went hiking from around Berowra to Mt Kuringai over the weekend. It's like Cityrail's screw ups manage to follow you around, even when there are no train tracks and only walking tracks.

I did find it slightly amusing that they chained the sign down. You'd have to be pretty dedicated to want to hike back out of the bush carrying that.

We saw a lot of things. I walked over a brown snake, which thankfully decided to slink away and not kill me, a red belly, a few bush turkeys, a random rooster (I really have no idea what the hell it was doing and I when I heard it crow I thought I was going mad), a few goannas, a crapload of spiders, and a kangaroo.

Oh and leeches. Blood sucking bastards. I had one in my shoe.

But worse than leeches are probably ticks. Those suckers just don't let go like leeches do.

I'd been eager to find out how much going to the gym had improved my endurance and overall fitness, if at all. Unfortunately, I've been fighting a toe infection of sorts and had not been going in order to rest it up and let it heal in time for the hike. Going on a walk after practically not doing anything made my body pretty upset.

Upset might be an understatement.

The funny thing is, after about 20 minutes or so, it gives up and just accepts its fate. I think I did a lot better than I would have a year ago.

While hiking is great for fitness, it's not the main reason I do it. I think a lot during these hikes -- when you're walking for so many hours, it's natural to do so. But hiking is a very symbolic thing to me. There's no guarantee that you're going to finish and it's a constant struggle to take the next step. It's the same with life.

Where do you find the motivation to take another step, to make further progress? Sometimes you don't. You just tell yourself to shut up and do it. All the ways you tackle it can be applied to life in general, it's just that you get to live a microcosm of it for perhaps one day.

Did you miss the scenery? Are you walking down the right path? Are you putting in all this effort, only to have to turn around later? Are you falling behind, or getting to far ahead? Who's going to help you if or when you fall down?

It's the greatest analogy to me, and even at the end of it, after it's all done and finished with, if I look back and don't have fond memories or a sense of achievement, it makes me question whether I set the bar high enough.

What do you drink when you finish a walk? Soghurt. Or is it Yoda? It doesn't matter, because it's green time!

Seriously, I have no idea where this is from, but it pretty much tastes like what you might imagine yoghurt would be if it were a soda. Sort of like creaming soda actually. But just, not.

But lastly, as if I wasn't tired enough, a bottle of JW will do the trick. Oddly enough, although I previously stated that only JD gets me depressed, I found myself extremely sooky and woke up the next morning to strange posts on one of my social networks which, admittedly at the time, I remember seemed like a good idea, but was horribly cryptic and fairly pointless.

I often get a laugh out of cryptic messages on Facebook and the like. The sort where people post about how they are having a horrible time or something similar and when someone asks, they say they don't want to talk about it. But in reality, I've realised that many people do the same, putting up little passive-aggressive tantrums to let people know they're upset, but not wanting to discuss it.

You don't even need to be tipsy for that, but I'm guilty nonetheless.

"I love you, but ..." is the easiest way to tell if love is conditional

After shooting all of last weekend, my SLR is getting a bit of a rest. One of the things I do is ensure that I have multiple backups of all the photos I take. At the moment, this means all my compact flash cards are sitting at work just in case my house burns down and my multiple sets of local copies are destroyed. I'm paranoid about these things.

So this week is entirely from my phone and more opportunistic than with any sense of thought.

Christmas is coming up and it seems like the beginning of November is fair game for decorations. I don't really understand what's up with the Canadian flags though.

It's slightly amusing to me because this is near my work place. My old work place used to be near the Canadian consulate and last week I ended up listening to talks that in part related to the Canadian government in an event near that work place.

One of the interesting things about being a journalist is that you get to meet a lot of different people. As someone who was once such a social recluse that he hated the very idea of even purchasing train tickets from an attendant as opposed to a machine, it's an interesting space to be in once you realise that for some reason people are more scared of you than you are of them.

I think a business card speaks volumes about the sort of company that you work for. Whether they're embossed, gloss, matte, textured, or unique in some way they all say something. Probably what leaves an impression on me the most though, is the weight of the paper stock. I was actually surprised that Facebook's cards weren't printed on something heavier. In contrast, a public relations person I'd been talking to earlier that day had some pretty nice cards.

I often check with people whether they understand Eastern traditions in giving and receiving cards by simply doing it and seeing if they follow. I don't expect many people to do the whole giving and receiving with two hands and studying the cards, but I'm often surprised by who does and doesn't know how to, or who simply flick their cards across the table! I'm sure everyone keeps a "dirt" file on me anyway. Those damn journalists!

I have a few friends that live in Ashfield and I often end up eating around the area. While one of my favourites are two dumpling stores of Liverpool Road -- New Shanghai and Shanghai Night -- there's a cafe a little further down the road that I visited for the first time this week. I thought their chairs were cute.

It's one of the few cafes I've seen with a separate indoors, but partitioned off, smoking area. Usually you see that sort of thing at a pub. They're a bit pricey, but the servings, at least for dessert, seem pretty generous. I couldn't finish mine. Homers Cafe, 339 Liverpool Rd.

I also made the trek out west where we had lunch at a little place in Glenbrook called the Jazz Apple Kitchen. My significant other's sister's interest often plays the guitar there. While I only met him for the first time that weekend, it's interesting the things you pick up, or possibly imagine that you pick up, from conversations.

When I was following him in the car, I spent a while wondering what it was about his driving that seemed familiar. I realised a little later that the lines he drove, even though we were both driving quite slowly, reminded me of those I've seen many, many other motorcyclists take when I used to ride myself. Now I don't know whether I imagined it or if it was because he mentioned earlier that he too used to ride.

French toast and caramelised bananas. I'm a sucker for bananas. Make them into thickshakes, bake them into banana bread, deep fry them, add some icecream and call it a banana split, or make a banana sandwich; it's probably one of my favourite fruits. I was devastated when the price rose to over $14 per kilogram and cafes and restaurants in Sydney began to charge ridiculous surcharges.

Call me crazy, but if you've never tried it, take a thin slice of tasty cheese and eat it with your banana. Cheese and banana. It works.

Looking out from Bluff Reserve, Glenbrook, south-west towards Jellybean Pool. I actually had no idea where I was when I took this picture, but I'd been to Jellybean Pool many years ago when I used to go hiking semi-regularly. Back then, as a scrappy little kid, I'd fall into creeks and rivers all the time.

My days of exploring canyons and peeing off cliffs have since been replaced with the urban landscape where I still explore laneways and unfortunately find where others have been drunkenly peeing. There are less spiders at least, though.

This is Belle, a Belgian Shepherd. She's quite old and has a few medical issues, but like my German Shepherd Dog is a sweet old sook. She's how I imagine Jess may grow up into one day. Jess is still mostly bouncing off the walls still though.

You can't chart your forward destination if you're always looking back

Let's try not to make posting this late a habit.

I shot over 1800 frames last week, but unfortunately I can't share most of them with you as they were part of a good friend's wedding. Ironically, I didn't end up shooting that much for this post, so we're going to take a revisit of some older photos that didn't make the seven.

But first...

The wedding bands.

I've seen people make them themselves, engrave each others fingerprints on each others', have them combine with other rings and so on, but no matter how (un)fancy, they're probably one of the most recognisable symbols of commitment and love.

That said, they can be pretty expensive symbols.

Nothing like a good old barbecue in, er, the middle of nowhere.

One of my friends has a shop on Parramatta Road with an open back yard that pretty much backs on to brushland and the M4 Motorway. It's a really strange place to roast slabs of meat, but also very cool at the same time. I often wish I had a big backyard to do something similar.

Hide the vegetables! The kids won't know they're there! I don't know why I haven't noticed this before, or why people hadn't thought of it sooner. What will I be eating next? A cheeseburger with hidden spinach?

Scotch and dry is my drink of choice. I don't like fizzy mixers, but scotch neat or with water is just a bit too strong for my liking. Dry ginger ale seems to hit that right balance for some reason. It's a pity I never seem to have any at home. I have bottles upon bottles of Glenfiddich 12, 15, and JW Red, Black and Blue from my days as a bartender, but never any dry to go with it.

There's also a bit of a strange situation I find myself in. I rarely drink because everyone I've lived with has been a non-drinker. My significant other doesn't like to drink, my most recent ex-housemate tries not to as she gets drunk and a little grumpy too quickly, and my housemate before that is deathly allergic to alcohol.

As a result I only seem to drink at home when I'm down and I only ever drink one spirit in those cases -- Jack Daniels straight up. I seem to have gone through several bottles now.

Taken during the Sydney Google Photowalk, I ended up turfing this one because the two people were slightly out of focus. I'm beginning to wonder whether I should just be a bit more lenient, or whether in the long run it's good to maintain a high standard. The same could apply to many things in life. It's funny people always say act like the world will end tomorrow, but if that were true we'd have no long-term backup plans.

Over on Broadway, there's a set of a apartment blocks called the Quadrant. One of my friends used to live in there. It's a fairly swish place considering how close it is to the city. Despite being so close, it has a pretty large, under-used courtyard. This water feature sits in the middle of it, but it otherwise feels like pretty wasted space. I suppose if it were up to me though, the city would be full of skyscrapers. Wait, it is.

There's also a pretty good Malaysian/Thai restaurant in the Quadrant called Malacca Straits. I suddenly had a craving for their food today and that's saying something since I usually don't like to eat Asian food.

Could be on a beach somewhere, or a park, or someone's backyard. I enjoy these moments of just taking time out, but to me they're just that -- a moment. People often say they need a holiday to get away from it all, but to me a holiday is more about immersing yourself in new experiences. I think what people are really asking for is time to pause and reflect on life. The great thing is, you don't need to go somewhere far away -- in fact, that can sometimes be more stressful -- you can pause to reflect almost anywhere you are.

It's just closing your eyes, taking a deep breath and letting everything go for just a moment. And often, that's all you really needed.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to make a giant leap forward

Alright, it's another week with a few experiments in street. I guess it could be argued that most things here are street since most of the time I wander around Sydney's streets taking photos, but I don't see it that way.

The greatest take away from all of this? I'm still here alive and breathing. Taking pictures on the street will not kill you.

I have no idea what caused this paint spill at Railway Square, but it was pretty fun to watch the stories that came out of it. Was it a trolley? There were tracks coming out of it. But the paint trail went on for several hundred metres down Regent.

It was mostly cleaned up the next day, but not before I spotted this little track of footprints. Dirty bird.

I actually took this to experiment with in some new processing software I was going to try. I still haven't gotten around to doing so. Last week was my turn to come into work early, so I've been getting all this lovely light, but not having enough time to watch for things to shoot.

A fairly recognisable intersection, Goulburn and George. What is with this crossing? You can't turn right no matter which way you approach it. I've often wondered how much of Sydney's traffic is just people driving around trying to figure out how to get on to a certain street.

I'm wondering what she's thinking. Not many people actually look up as they're walking. It's pretty sad actually. We're rushing through the city, staring at the back of the person in front of us, or down at our smartphone, which is meant to make us more connected.

I liked the variety this guy had. While I've seen that bag around a few times, I haven't seen any Chicago Bulls merchandise since high school. Rarer than that, it just hides his blue-dyed rat's tail -- something I used to have when I was a wee little kid and never seem to see any more. I guess it's like the mullet. There are only so many people that can pull it off. Like MacGuyver.

And back to his bag, what's that it's eating? An Angry Birds keyring. Awesome.

This guy was enjoying a peaceful moment, nodding off for a nap while surrounded by shoppers. No one really gives you a second thought. I'm beginning to wonder how much you can get away with in Pitt Street mall.

Eddy and Pitt. I wonder who spent the time to do this. More importantly, what the heck is it? It sort of looks like an alien with a huge exorcist head stepping on a baby. Or taking a dump, getting freaked out and running away. I'm sure that's exactly what they had in mind.

This was one of those awkward moments where I saw a shot, lined it up, and the subject turned and looked directly at me. I shot it anyway and kept on walking. I actually thought the original shot would have turned out nicer. I guess it shows what happens when you're just that touch too slow.

The building she's sitting at is Wake Up!, a hostel/cafe on George and Pitt. It seems like a pretty nice place to stay if you were travelling and I've considered stopping in just to have a beer and a bite. Maybe next time.